Facebook strategy BlackFin360 - Innovation To Reality

April 7, 2014July 3, 2015

From Virality to Engagement to Reach & Frequency. Facebook’s Latest Strategy Shift Explained.

Facebook is rolling out major changes to their platform that greatly affect marketers. To help navigate this shift, I have worked closely with the Facebook team to understand the nuances of the shift and created a white paper that should help organizations to understand the shift and what steps to consider next.

The overarching point you need to understand is that organic Facebook reach is being reduced dramatically and it will cost you to reach your own audience. Facebook is now less about brand-published content being the sole driver of engagement. You must pay to amplify your content and you must create multiple variations of your content based on targeting different segments of your audience.

Here is a summary of what you will find in the white paper:

1) Past: Facebook Reach = Earned Media. Present: Facebook Reach = Paid Media

2) Trend of organic reach of content on a brand’s Facebook page:

October 2013 reach = (approx) 12% of followers
February 2014 reach = (approx) 6% of followers
Soon reach = (approx) 1-2% of followers

3) Now, more than ever, brands must pay for reach on the platform

4) Near Term considerations:

Re-evaluation of your creative
Frequency of posting
Personalization
Optimization

5) Defining the “Way Forward”

Reach and Frequency Focus
Engagement Focus
Community Focus

Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360

December 17, 2013July 3, 2015

Facebook To Launch Video Ads In News Feed

I wrote this post back in May of this year when I was first briefed by the Facebook team about this potential product roll-out. It has been a long go for this feature to roll out.

I hear it now… “Wait, we can already promote a video via paid… how is this different?”

Facebook’s goal is to now incorporate sight, sound and motion in a users newsfeed on both mobile & desktop without a click. They had recently rolled out the feature to general users to test the response with consumers. They have seen a 10% higher engagement than non autoplaying videos since launching in September.

We know that the power of Facebook is tied to Storytelling & amplification. The goal with this new offering is to further extend social context via storytelling + great content = great conversation and to capture a users attention without a click to initiate.

Seeing it in action is impressive and definitely gets your attention as it is ALREADY active when you scroll down your feed. The video starts as soon as it enters your frame of view within the newsfeed.

Initially the sound is off with subtitles and an option to turn the sound on is then prompted to the user.

Here are the details…

The view is defined by 3 carousels, similar to how multiple images show in a post
The first video is a 15 second brand reveal spot that is also subtitled and initiates upon visibility in your stream
There are two other spots that can play the extended cuts of video content 30, 60, 90 to a 10 minute trailer within the carousel
The user is then prompted to share & comment directly within the video post view
The video will pause and start back up again when the user scrolls back up
Each video has to be a minimum of 15 seconds (no vines here)
There will only be 1 video campaign per day. You read that correctly. 1 video per day. Your brand owns that day
Pure impression based pricing at the moment, no CTR or True View type option yet.
Segmentation will be limited to (male/female 18-54) demos. The only segmentation available out of the gate is tied to gender and 18-54. As with all products, after launch the ability to further segment will come into play
This is only available directly through Fb I/O no self serve option. Pricing is comparable to a day’s takeover on other channels

From a strategic standpoint this is a pure awareness driver as of time of launch the product is purely impression based at the moment with Facebook providing guaranteed reach.

From a measurement standpoint, Facebook is claiming guaranteed audience through Nielsen OCR (Online Campaign Ratings) as well as Video insights powered by Facebook insights reporting that will capture everything from sound, engagement (likes, comments, shares) organic reach and fans.

There are a number of brands that are lining up to take advantage of this type of placement. For large programs that center around digitally centric content, this is a great addition to the platform.

Initial reaction even among my team was mixed. Terms like “fascinating”, “interesting” & “awesome” were also met with some concern. A very savvy team member made the point that he was concerned with the recent levels of driving monetization could be impacting the overall user experience… potentially leading to a loss of interest on the platform”.

My takeaway was from a brand perspective I like the opportunity to feature my digitally centric content and drive guaranteed reach. The motion seemed like a natural extension of the News Feed and the “sound off” option did not lead me to remember the days of geocities sites that blared music upon load.

It will be very interesting to see the impact that this new type of offering will have and which brands will be first out of the gate.

Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360

October 4, 2011October 13, 2013

Why Edge Rank Matters

With all of the changes on deck for Facebook, it will be interesting to see how the Edge Rank algorithm will potentially change and how this may impact Brands usage of Facebook.

What is Edge Rank? And why would I care if it changes?   When you first visit your Facebook top news feed, you may notice that the topics discussed are not always a live representation of your friends updates but it is actually a collection of updates predetermined by Facebook.

The process to determine what you see in your newsfeed is managed by Facebook’s Edge Rank. This is the algorithm that Facebook uses to display content from your network that it deems you would find the most engaging.

From a brand marketing perspective driving relevance and engagement through the newsfeed is one of the key benefits of the platform. Thus creation of a content strategy that capitalizes on the Edge Rank algorithm is of paramount importance.

Edge Rank is calculated by weighing Affinity, Weight & Time Decay as it applied to your network.

Affinity = The more you interact with certain individuals, the higher your affinity to that individual and the higher likelihood that you will see their updates.

Weight = Weight & interaction are similar as this category is dependent on the number of likes & comments that your update has received.

Time Decay = As with anything, the value/relevance of the post decays over time as new content is published.

Moontoast had a great infographic that highlighted the Edge Rank algorithm.

When maximizing your Edge Rank position it is important to engage as the brand with the comments from your fans as this helps create additional affinity connections.

It is also important to drive engagement on a post level as this is now aggregated on the Friend Activity tab. See previous post on Friend Activity.

It is also important to occasionally drive likes on the post level as this not only drives additional reach via fans networks but also impacts how often the brands message would appear as Top News.

This also ties in nicely with the Sponsored Stories ad units as they can drive likes on the post level.

Finally, by providing relevant & timely content at a cadence your fanbase is comfortable with, it is possible to limit the effects of time decay.

As the new Facebook timelines are rolled out to the masses and additional activity streams are in place, it will be very interesting to see how the concept of Edge Rank evolves with the next iteration of Facebook.

Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360

August 24, 2011October 13, 2013

Facebook Location Services How the Game Has Changed

Today Facebook made a significant announcement regarding the future of their location services. Below is pulled directly from today’s post.

Tag Locations in Posts

Before: You could only “check in” to locations using the Places feature on a smart phone.

Going Forward: Now you can add location to anything. Lots of people use Facebook to talk about where they are, have been or want to go. Now you can add location from anywhere, regardless of what device you are using, or whether it is a status update, photo or Wall post. Of course, you can always choose not to add location at all.

As a part of this, we are phasing out the mobile-only Places feature. Settings associated with it are also being phased out or removed. (You can read more about how location works and settings affected here: http://www.facebook.com/about/location)

This is a significant move on the part of Facebook as it takes them out of emphasizing the check-in game and extends the amount of potential data available ge0-targeted ad placement. Checking in will still be available as part of the platform but the onus is now about appending content with location.

To be direct, Facebook views itself as an advertising platform. With the ability to drive significant impressions and higher than average click-through and engagement, the ability to target advertising is the key revenue driver for Facebook.

By tying location to the past (Share where you have been), present (Share where you are) & future (Share where you are going) model and integrating location with content, the context of the post + location can provide additional relevance to marketers looking to connect and drive behaviors with Facebook’s plethora of users.

How this will potentially integrate with Facebook deals is still unknown. This is a logical shift on Facebook’s part and gets them out of direct competition with the gamified geo-location services while driving additional data to further strengthen their advertising position.

Smart move by Facebook.

Follow Tom Edwards @BlackFin360